Making the case for why the Nuggets should trade for Trae Young this summer

The NBA rumor mill has been quiet recently without much player movement ahead of the preseason. There was buzz around available players like Lauri Markkanen and Brandon Ingram, but that’s all been resolved or died down for the most part.

However, one superstar who seems to be readily available is Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks. The Hawks already traded one star guard this offseason, sending Dejounte Murray to the Pelicans. But the team got the top pick in the draft and could be eying an even bigger rebuild.

Trae Young is available on the trade market

According to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon on the Hoop Collective podcast, Trae can be had in a deal. From the pod, “The simple fact of the matter is if there was a real market for Trae Young he’d be somewhere else right now.”

Young is a very polarizing player; he’s made three all-star games and an all-NBA team. He’s led a team to an Eastern Conference Finals appearance and yet he’s still just 25 years old. One would think teams would be lining up to trade for a young star of his ilk.

On the other hand, he’s undersized, a major liability on defense, he’s shown zero ability to impact the game when he doesn’t have the ball, and his shooting numbers have actually been fairly pedestrian in recent years.

He’s clearly a good player, but he has a lot of flaws that make it hard to build a team around him. That can make roster building especially tricky when Young is set to make $138 million over the next three seasons.

Why the Nuggets should make a play for Trae Young

So why would the Nuggets consider making a move for Young? Well, they have their own polarizing guard on the roster in Jamal Murray. Murray has struggled with injuries and looked like his body might be breaking down in recent years. He’s never been close to the regular-season player that Young is, but has the postseason accolades and heroics.

But the bigger issue with Murray currently may be his contract. He remains unsigned and is set to enter the final year of his deal. He’s seeking a four-year, $209 million max and so far the Nuggets seem apprehensive about signing that deal.

The Nuggets don’t want a disgruntled Murray coming into camp. If he plays well, he could be mad at the team and want to sign elsewhere. And if he plays poorly, the Nuggets have blown any leverage in trading Jamal. It’s a tough spot to be in, but they at least need to consider trades.

And if they are going to trade Murray, a player like Young would make sense. Trae is younger and a more reliable regular season player who could carry the team through stretches and create an elite offense with Nikola Jokic night in and night out. 

The Nuggets could cover up his size with their big guard and wing defenders fairly well. And they have a great lob threat in place with Aaron Gordon who should be able to create an elite pick-and-roll game with Young.

We’ve already seen Young create playoff magic with a much worse roster around him. There’s reason to believe placing him with a true superstar like Jokic could bring out an even better version. He’d face much less attention from defenses and perhaps be able to recapture his elite shooting.

If this goes well, the Nuggets could be upgrading the roster in a major way while also making it younger and allowing Jokci to age more gracefully. The Nuggets could even try to throw in more salary and throw Jokic’s Serbian teammate Bogdan Bogdanovic into the deal if they wanted to get crazy (although that would still probably require adding MPJ to the deal).

Either way, this seems like a risk and it would send shockwaves through the NBA, but it might be the best move the Nuggets could make. They’d have two of the best offensive players on earth and would simply need to surround them with length, athleticism, and defense, which the team already possesses. 

It isn’t perfect, but at this point nothing is. If the Hawks are really this willing to listen on Young then it’s at least worth calling and having the conversation, especially if a Murray contract extension isn’t imminent.